News reports have it that Donald Trump is going to name a Veep running mate based on choosing someone with lots of experience in D.C. Huh?  Excuse me:  I thought that Trump's big appeal was that he's an OUTSIDER?!?  So, to balance his outsiderness, he's going to run with an ultimate insider.  Well, that's about as logical as everything else he's done. The Déjà Vu that I'm feeling (kinda like ...

The violent anger of the political right is the clear result of the impending death of their political and social power.  Like the Old Confederacy, history is passing them by --- and they don't like it.  Understandable. The world just has to live through their death throes, and survive the damage they're determined to inflict.  Many in the GOP know what is actually happening, and understand tha ...

President Barack Obama's presidency is a hugely consequential one.  His low key approach and professorial demeanor belie his long and impressive list of accomplishments.  Barack Obama has turned the enormous ship of state toward the future, and the the nation will never be the same --- even the world is changed with his global Climate Change agreement. Even GOP Presidential candidates like Ted ...

The world seems to be veering rightward into extreme positions.  Middle Eastern anger is moving to violence, Putin is taking Russia back to cold-war era hard lines, and the GOP in America is going down their old familiar rabbit hole of intolerance, bigotry, and fear-mongering. It still remains to be seen whether or not America will follow GOP Extremism.  Conservatives are all acting like coweri ...

  In past years the Starbucks holiday cups have had winter and holiday images like snowflakes, reindeer or pine trees.  This year, Starbucks decided on a plain red design with no wintry images. Right-wing Christians decided that the lack of wintry images is an example of political correctness and a slam against Christians.  I'm not sure when winter designs like snowflakes have been cons ...

There's a war on our police ... actually, there are two wars on police:  one is a declared war --- the one that ISIS called for in January of this year; and the other is a war of retaliation against police brutality and the killing of unarmed Americans by the police. Both wars kill innocent people, innocent police officers in this case.  But, then again ... war does kill innocent people.  The a ...

I just did something really fun:  I downloaded the Republican Party Platform onto my laptop!  If you can ignore all the "freedom" talk, and the "opportunity" and "Constitution" and "Founding Fathers" spin, you'll see quite readily just what their agenda is. Right off the bat they tell you that government spending is harming the economy, which is batshit.  Government spending increases employmen ...

We've had inklings of this news, but in the April 5, 2015 edition of The Washington Post this article lays out the facts --- the hidden hand behind the Islamic State militants is Saddam Hussein's. The power of ISIS is the former Baathist Party of Saddam Hussein's.  Most of the Iraqis involved in the success of ISIS are former Iraqi officers who served under Saddam Hussein, including some who we ...

Just noticed that it's been two months since I posted on CLN.  It surely isn't because I have nothing to say;  I think that maybe it's that my Facebook page has drained some of my passion from my blog site! The inspiration for commenting hits me in the moment and I dash off a quick and shortened opinion to my "Friends" on Facebook.  It's like a release valve and some of the steam floats off, an ...

Suddenly and surprisingly, the GOP has now decided that it cares deeply about economic inequality in America. I'm sure we all remember that the previous position of the right on this subject was that even mentioning economic inequality was waging "class warfare" and was "the politics of envy."  We're glad that they have finally ended their See No Evil period, and now seem interested in addressing ...